Forecast

The best Bay Area school districts for 2019, according to Niche

Here are the 20 highest-rated school districts in the Bay Area for 2019, according to the real estate data company Niche.

Here are the 20 highest-rated school districts in the Bay Area for 2019, according to the real estate data company Niche.

Photo: Ariel Skelley/Getty Images

Photo: Ariel Skelley/Getty Images

Image
1of/27

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 27

Here are the 20 highest-rated school districts in the Bay Area for 2019, according to the real estate data company Niche.

Here are the 20 highest-rated school districts in the Bay Area for 2019, according to the real estate data company Niche.

Photo: Ariel Skelley/Getty Images

The best Bay Area school districts for 2019, according to Niche

1 / 27

Back to Gallery

California lags behind most of the country in spending per public school pupil and teacher-student ratio, so it's no wonder that parents in the Bay Area often make finding a good school district a priority.

That task is helped by the ranking and review site Niche, which recently released its 2019 rankings of the top California public school districts. Niche also rated the top school districts in the Bay Area, which we have compiled in a gallery with each district's individual grades.

Check out the slideshow above to see the best Bay Area school districts.

For the third straight year, the Palo Alto Unified School District was named the top school district in the state. Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District came in second.

The local list changes little from year to year — only one newcomer broke into the top 20 for 2019. But some districts swapped positions. Albany City Unified, for example, perennially praised for the quality of its schools, fell five places from No. 6 to No. 11.

Piedmont City Unified, on the other hand, moved up five places from No. 10 to No. 5.

Still, the differences between the No. 20 and No. 1 are less than earth-shattering. Every district received either an "A" or "A+" in the critical college prep category.

Palo Alto Unified and Los Gatos-Saratoga received perfect A+ grades for academics, teachers and college prep for an overall "A+" grade.

Having excellent teachers makes a big difference in a state where the average teacher-to-student ratio is 1 to 24 (2013 figures), close to the worst in the nation.

The ratio is 1 to 19 at Palo Alto Unified and 1 to 21 at Los Gatos-Saratoga, both trailing the national average of 1 to 16.